Happy Halloween?

Was it really Halloween yesterday, or is my calendar off? If it really was, it was the quietest Halloween I have ever had. The most uneventful. We only had three or four trick-or-treaters (leaving a bucketful of candy for Mark and I to devour by ourselves. Uh oh.) and no one was in the mood to hang out and do anything. So Mark and I watched a show on haunted houses, then a movie called "Monster House," then we went to bed. Wow. Fun.

Mark and I were going to check out the Balboa Park Haunted Trail, but the tickets were $20 each, and we decided it wouldn't be too smart to spend $40 just to go to a haunted house. Plus nobody wanted to go with us, and that's the sort of thing that's more fun to do in a group. So we did nothing instead.

Sometimes making adult decisions (especially when it concerns money) ends up making things so goddamn boring.

Bah. I'm being negative again. What's something to be positive about?


Today is the first day of NaNoWriMo, and just the fact that I'm sitting down to type this shows that I'm doing well so far.

You might think it's cheating, but this year, I'm not working towards writing a "novel," per se. I'm just writing. Anything. Journal-ing, blogging, fiction writing, whatever. As long as I have 50,000 words by the end of the month, it counts. I think it's going to help, though.

Don't understand the point of the whole thing? You know, if I'm not actually working towards a novel? Well, let me explain:

Every year before this, when I'm trying to write an actual cohesive story, I get so tangled up in story details that I get bogged down and write myself into corners. Speed-writing is not really my friend. But since I still wanted to participate in NaNoWriMo, I decided I would use it for something other than getting a huge, messy chunk of the novel on a page. I'm just using it as an exercise to get me in the habit of writing. I figure if I'm in the habit of writing (even if it's not fiction), my production levels will go up. And then The Novel will get done faster! (Although the term "faster" is irrelevant. Anything could be faster than the pace we're writing now. Even if I only wrote one word a day, it would be faster. Know why? Because currently we're writing NOTHING. BOO!)

But...yeah. That's the plan. We'll see how it goes.

(I'm at 425 words already! w00t!)


So, yesterday I took on a slightly more ambitious craft than the ones I've been doing lately. I started work changing a sundress I bought from Old Navy (that I never wear because the amount of cleavage it shows rockets me right into "streetwalker" territory) into a skirt with an elastic waistband and pockets. Basically, trying to turn this:

Into this (except with the pockets that I have yet to add):

(Obviously they were not the exact same dress - because of the fabric pattern - but they were the same style.)

As you can see, the project was going pretty well. Except for one thing: I forgot to remember that, when sewing in elastic, you want the seams you're sewing to having some give and stretch. Otherwise the elastic itself won't be able to stretch.

I did a stretch test on the seam as soon as I finished sewing it, and the thread broke. Because I'd sewed with a plain straight stitch instead of a zigzag or whatever it was I was supposed to use. So I have to fix it. I didn't have the patience to do it last night, and I'm not sure I have the patience today, but we'll see.


But yeah. As I have nothing else that is useful to say, I think I'll stop for now.

You may not see the rest of today's 1,667 words here, but rest assured, it will be written. I mean, I have nothing else to do.